Clerk charged with stealing lottery tickets

WHEATFIELD – A North Tonawanda man employed as a convenience store clerk was charged after a store manager said she saw him on store security taking lottery tickets from a display case.

Zachary A. Roberts, 18, of Lindsay Place, was charged with petit larceny by Niagara County sheriff’s deputies just after 4 p.m. Tuesday in Matty’s Food Mart, on Forest Parkway.

The store manager showed deputies store security video from Nov. 27, which allegedly showed Roberts standing behind a counter, removing lottery tickets, then placing them in a plastic bag inside a small garbage can behind the counter. Roberts then left the store with garbage can containing the stolen tickets, deputies reported. A total of $250 worth of tickets were removed.

Roberts told deputies that he remembered taking the tickets and when asked what happened to them he said, “I gave them to a friend,” deputies reported.